Training for Vacation?

So, now that we have finished relating our adventures from our most recent trips, we want to tell you briefly about our next trip, which is in about five weeks. Although we don't usually write about our trips in advance, this one is special because we are currently training for it. Training? Yes, because our next trip is a swimming tour in Montenegro.

On this trip, we will be in Tivat, Montenegro on the Bay of Kotor for five days, and will spend four-and-a-half days traveling around the bay and Adriatic by boat and then swimming to our destinations. Each of the first four days will have morning and afternoon swimming sessions, with a morning-only session on the last day (nine total), and will cover distances of between 2.2 and 2.8 kilometers (1.3 and 1.6 miles) each.

I have never before swum for exercise (or to arrive at a destination!), and Shana hasn't done so in years (and never in open water). Thus, since we returned from France, we have been going to the beach twice a week, which we are  increasing to three times, and training in the La Concha Bay (pictured below). We think this is pretty good practice because while the bay is partly protected by Santa Catalina Island, there are definitely waves and currents. We have had rough conditions for some of our training sessions, and others that are much calmer. We can definitely feel the difference! We swim along the buoy line that is deployed to separate swimming areas from boating areas in the bay. And, although we don't know exactly how far we are swimming, we now swim about 35 minutes at a time.

Fortunately, no one is forced to swim on our trip. If you don't want to swim at any time, there are kayaks and stand-up paddle boards you can use, or you can simply sit on the support boat all the way to whatever site we are seeing that day. But, we are preparing as if we are going to swim the entire trip since we don't want to be the old folks who can't hack it (there will be 14 other people on our tour).

With five weeks of training still to go, we are hopeful that we will be ready, but we are also trying to keep in mind that we like to kayak and paddle board. 

On the trip we will also be in Paris for one day and Dubrovnik (Croatia) for two, so it will not all be pain and drudgery...uh, I mean swimming. As always, we'll keep you posted.

Hasta pronto,

Jeff and Shana